How Do You Get Feedback to Improve Your Tracks?

[djtypebeat]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot about how valuable feedback is in improving music, especially when it comes from outside your usual genre.

I’m currently working on something called Beat Critique (beatcritique.co), a platform to connect producers/creators/artists with pros across genres for detailed critiques. It’s in pre-launch right now—full access starts January 15th, but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Do you actively seek out feedback from different genres, or do you focus on sticking to your niche? What do you think makes feedback truly actionable?

Looking forward to hearing your ideas and experiences. Thanks!

[Benedict]

I see heaps of interest in this :sigh:

Firstly people have to actually want constructive criticism feedback (and not just a pat on the saying how amazeballz dey iz, lest they get like totally postal).

The people giving feedback need credibility. And a bit more than self-proclaimed pro-fulness. There has to be quality work to show. Recycling tired and commonly wrong DAWville (un)truisms as advice eg yo like id sidechain the 2k to the hats and pump up the jams with the wall padding to your headphones... is not feedback but feedforward BS that helps no one.

And I see your site didn't happen so...

[rackrack22]

It depends what your goals are. If your goal is commerciality, I can see getting feedback from average listeners as more important. If your goal is expressing yourself without thought of commerciality, then maybe meditation and finding ways to be more honest with yourself — feedback from inside. If you're trying to get better at mixing, I'd ask a mixing engineer, and so forth. There are so many aspects to get feedback about that it may help to narrow down what you're trying to improve on.

[jamcat]

To solicit feedback, I usually drive by busy sidewalks really slow with my windows down and my track blasting. Mostly I get people yelling "turn that crap down!" but once in a while someone will shout something constructive, like "that's way too peaky around 4k!" or "over-compression is swallowing your transients, idiot!"

[opusonix]

Is this still up? Would love to see what you guys came up with.

[enroe]

To solicit feedback, I usually drive by busy sidewalks really slow with my windows down and my track blasting. Mostly I get people yelling "turn that crap down!" but once in a while someone will shout something constructive, like "that's way too peaky around 4k!" or "over-compression is swallowing your transients, idiot!"

That's incredibly good advice!

The best thing to do is drive slowly along a busy boulevard in
an open convertible - with gelled hair and two sexy women
in the seats - and play your music loudly.

[enroe]

It depends what your goals are.

If your goal is commerciality (1), I can see getting feedback from average listeners as more important.

If your goal is expressing yourself (2) without thought of commerciality, then maybe meditation and finding ways to be more honest with yourself — feedback from inside. ...

I think that's the best advice.

1. When it comes to commercial music, meaning that your
music should appeal to almost everyone and attract general
attention, then the "average person" is the target audience.
This means that your friends, neighbors, acquaintances, etc.,
should also like the music. And if you play your songs to them,
you'll get a lot of feedback – from "I don't like it at all" to "oh,
that's good."

2. But if it's about expressing yourself musically, then feedback
from others is at least secondary anyway. In this case, you
yourself are the one who can say whether your emotions and
feelings are being expressed or not. Whether your music is
good or not—and what needs to be improved.

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If it's something between (1) and (2), you can present your song
on almost any platform—for example, here on KVR in the "Cafe"
section—ideally with an easily accessible audio link.

Since there are very different musicians with very different
genres performing here, social skills are important. What I'm
trying to say is: You'll only get feedback if you listen to and
evaluate other songs from completely different genres yourself.